“All right,” he said. “Star, leave the Curiosity Trap off. I want the Dolls to start bringing packs and supplies down here for the people in the cage. Travel food, some extra clothing, bedrolls, water bottles. And a good warm coat or cloak, and boots for all of them. If—when—they reach the refuge, they are going to need all of those things. It’s only until next moon until the Regatta—” Now he looked directly at the people behind that chainlink fence. “Can you bear to stay here for a couple more days? Because our best chance of getting everyone free is to stage everything at once. The last of my people are going to the refuge during the Regatta. The Dolls are all going then. Your best chance of getting out is to leave then, too.”

Scullen spoke for them all. “We can manage,” she said fiercely.

“And you,” he turned to Star. “Before those of you here leave, can you break the Trap and open the cage, and take these people with you? You promised to bring the hostages. Will you bring these people too?”

“We will,” Star said immediately. “It adds very little complication to what was already planned. We have already begun stepping up production of provisions.”

“When would the best time to go be?” he asked.

“When the Emperor leaves to view the Regatta,” Star told them. “That will be no sooner than noon and no later than afternoon. Once he is seated in his chariot, he will no longer require Doll attendants, and he will dismiss us.”

“Then that will be the signal,” he told them all. “When the Emperor is in his chariot—we run for the Gates. You break this place, you each grab a prisoner or a hostage, and you run for the Gates. You’ll have your talismans. This all needs to happen at once, so nobody who would oppose it can coordinate a defense. And hopefully—” he looked at Beltran “—hopefully my Herald and I will be right behind you.”

—

Kordas certainly hadn’t planned this diversion, and after seeing the Trap and the bait in it, he really hadn’t wanted it, but it seemed important to Star that he speak with the Record Keeper, and if it was important to Star, it was obviously important to all the Dolls. So the two of them stepped through another of the many Gates that seemed only used by Dolls, as Star said aloud, “The Office of Records.” They emerged in the strangest—room?—Kordas had ever seen in his life.

It was not strange enough to cool his anger, but it was strange enough that it got his attention through his anger.